From The Mission to The Castro, from Ocean Beach to South Beach – Observations of people and trends in San Francisco

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Monthly Archives: July 2012

On a recent trip up North to Napa, San Francisco’s own boozy backyard watering hole, we came across Raymond Vineyards. When one pictures Napa in their head one tends to conjure images of rolling vine-covered hills and palatial estates. One tends to think of wine tasting as a very classy activity, complete with old world tradition and formality. Basically my image of Napa is more like this:

The image of tradition and formality in the countryside estate

But leave it to f*#&ing hipsters to make it look more like this:

Chandeliers and mannequins cover up the steel vats.

The first area we are taken through is a long hallway full of various scents often claimed to be found in wines. There are fruity & traditional ones like cherry, orange blossom, honey, grapefruit, black currant, anis, and more exotic ones like leather, forest floor, barnyard, diesel, tar, fresh cut grass, and cat piss.

We were then taken into a private lounge called The Red Room that they had just finished building and decorating. The owner was there and explained to us that he was trying to bring a little bit of hip, urban San Francisco up to Napa. The lounge was super nice, if not a little over the top on the red velvet.

Then they take us into this room – The Crystal Cellar. OMFG – what have hipsters done to Napa?

There are mannequins galore dressed in sexy devil/angel outfits with ostentatious chandeliers. Oh and there are some large steel wine barrels behind them where they make the wine, but that’s not the real reason you came up here today is it?

This mannequin is way cooler than you are.

They have a small display case of luxury glass artwork in the same room. Oddly juxtaposed against these sexy mannequins sits this tiny glass Buddha being sold for $600.

Lastly, in one last effort to market themselves correctly you must always ask: “Is it local?”